You love your CD music collection. The problem is that you want to listen to it wherever you go. CDs are pretty bulky, so you have to figure out how to get them onto your smartphone. The problem is that you're not as savvy with smartphones as most people. That's OK. It's not too difficult to transfer music to your phone from your most prized CDs. Here's how you do it.

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Power up your PC or Mac and choose the music program you want to work with. For PC users, you have quite a few options. Windows makes its own music player that's pretty easy to work with so we'll stick to instructions for that. For Macs, most users use iTunes, so we're going to use that as an example as well.

Select a Default Format and Bit Rate

The format of your music files and the bit rate are going to determine how good the copy of the music file is. Basically, when you transfer music from your CD to your smartphone, you have to tell your computer to take the music file from the CD and make a copy of it on your hard drive. This is called "ripping." But, before you "rip" a music file, you need to select the format of the copy (i.e. the file type that will end up on your computer) and the bit rate (the sound quality).

The most common audio formats are Windows Media Audio Pro, Windows Media Audio (variable bit rate), Windows Media Audio Lossless, and MP3 and WAV (lossless). Windows Media Audio Pro is a format suited for low-capacity portable devices like mobile phones. Not all smartphones accept this format so you should look in the instruction booklet that came with your phone to make sure that your phone supports this media file type before converting music files to it. Windows Media Audio reduces the file size so that you can fit more songs on your phone, but it may take longer to rip off of the CD. MP3 and WAV formats are similar to Windows Media Audio files, but they provide some additional flexibility and most smartphones support them.

In Windows Music Player, go to the "Rip Music" tab of the "Options" dialog box. Select the "File Types tab in the "Options" window that appears. Then, select the media file type you want to use as the default file type for all future ripping. You can change the file type whenever you want, but any file that's already ripped can't be changed once it's on the hard drive. You'll need to re-rip the CD if you want a different file type.

When choosing the bit rate, keep in mind that the lower the bit rate, the smaller the file type. This is good for fitting more music onto your smartphone. However, there is a tradeoff. The lower the bitrate, the poorer the copy. Your music may not sound very nice at extremely low bitrates. If you don't want to risk losing sound quality, choose the default bit rate.

For Macs, the default setup is usually the best so you don't have to change any settings in iTunes. If you do want to change settings, here's what to do: select "Preferences" from the iTunes menu and click the "General" tab. Then, click on the "Import Settings" button. Choose "AAC Encoder," "AIFF Encoder," "Apple Lossless Encoder," "MP3 Encoder," or "WAV Encoder." The Apple Lossless encoder reduces file size by about half without sacrificing audio quality.

Rip The Music To Your Computer

Under the "Rip Music" tab in the options dialog box, make sure "Rip-CD" is checked and "Only when in the Rip tab" radio button is selected. Once you're done with the settings, insert a CD into your disc drive. Click the "Rip Music" tab in Windows Media Player and wait for the CD to be copied. In iTunes, your CD will begin ripping when you insert something into the optical disc drive.

Copy Files To Your Smartphone

For PCs, connect your smartphone to the computer using a USB cord. Your phone should show up as an external hard drive. Open your phone on the hard drive and copy all of the files you just ripped from your Windows Media Player Folder to your phone. Done. Now you can play music on your smartphone. For iTunes, sync your phone with iTunes and the program will automatically copy the songs to your phone.

Will Blackburn works in the field of video and music production. He loves sharing his insights on technical issues by blogging in his spare time. Click to learn about a great mp3 converter from KoyoteSoft.